OBS. 18.--We see then, that, according to Dr. Lowth and others, the only good English in which one can address an individual on any ordinary occasion, is you with a plural verb; and that, according to Lindley Murray and others, the only good English for the same purpose, is thou with a verb inflected with st or est. Both parties to this pointed contradiction, are more or less in the wrong. The respect of the Friends for those systems of grammar which deny them the familiar use of the pronoun thou, is certainly not more remarkable, than the respect of the world for those which condemn the substitution of the plural you. Let grammar be a true record of existing facts, and all such contradictions must vanish. And, certainly, these great masters here contradict each other, in what every one who reads English, ought to know. They agree, however, in requiring, as indispensable to grammar, what is not only inconvenient, but absolutely impossible. For what "the measure of verse will not admit," cannot be used in poetry; and what may possibly be crowded into it, will often be far from ornamental. Yet our youth have been taught to spoil the versification of Pope and others, after the following manner: "Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire." Say, "Who touchedst or didst touch."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 180. "For thee that ever felt another's wo." Say, "Didst feel."--Ib. "Who knew no wish but what the world might hear." Say, "Who knewest or didst know."--Ib. "Who all my sense confin'd." Say, "Confinedst or didst confine."--Ib., p. 186. "Yet gave me in this dark estate." Say, "Gavedst or didst give."--Ib. "Left free the human will."--Pope. Murray's criticism extends not to this line, but by the analogy we must say, "Leavedst or leftest." Now it would be easier to fill a volume with such quotations, and such corrections, than to find sufficient authority to prove one such word as gavedst, leavedst, or leftest, to be really good English. If Lord Byron is authority for "work'dst," he is authority also for dropping the st, even where it might be added:--
----"Thou, who with thy frown
Annihilated senates."
--Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv, st. 83.
OBS. 19.--According to Dr. Lowth, as well as Coar and some others, those preterits in which ed is sounded like t, "admit the change of ed into t; as, snacht, checkt, snapt, mixt, dropping also one of the double letters, dwelt, past."--Lowth's Gram., p. 46. If this principle were generally adopted, the number of our regular verbs would be greatly diminished, and irregularities would be indefinitely increased. What confusion the practice must make in the language, especially when we come to inflect this part of the verb with st or est, has already been suggested. Yet an ingenious and learned writer, an able contributor to the Philological Museum, published at Cambridge, England, in 1832; tracing the history of this class of derivatives, and finding that after the ed was contracted in pronunciation, several eminent writers, as Spenser, Milton, and others, adopted in most instances a contracted form of orthography; has seriously endeavoured to bring us back to their practice. From these authors, he cites an abundance of such contractions as the following: 1. "Stowd, hewd, subdewd, joyd, cald, expeld, compeld, spoild, kild, seemd, benumbd, armd, redeemd, staind, shund, paynd, stird, appeard, perceivd, resolvd, obeyd, equald, foyld, hurld, ruind, joynd, scatterd, witherd," and others ending in d. 2. "Clapt, whipt, worshipt, lopt, stopt, stampt, pickt, knockt, linkt, puft, stuft, hist, kist, abasht, brusht, astonisht, vanquisht, confest, talkt, twicht," and many others ending in t. This scheme divides our regular verbs into three classes; leaving but very few of them to be written as they now are. It proceeds upon the principle of accommodating our orthography to the familiar, rather than to the solemn pronunciation of the language. "This," as Dr. Johnson observes, "is to measure by a shadow." It is, whatever show of learning or authority may support it, a pernicious innovation. The critic says, "I have not ventured to follow the example of Spenser and Milton throughout, but have merely attempted to revive the old form of the preterit in t."--Phil. Museum, Vol. i, p. 663. "We ought not however to stop here," he thinks; and suggests that it would be no small improvement, "to write leveld for levelled, enameld for enamelled, reformd for reformed," &c.
OBS. 20.--If the multiplication of irregular preterits, as above described, is a grammatical error of great magnitude; the forcing of our old and well-known irregular verbs into regular forms that are seldom if ever used, is an opposite error nearly as great. And, in either case, there is the same embarrassment respecting the formation of the second person. Thus Cobbett, in his English Grammar in a Series of Letters, has dogmatically given us a list of seventy verbs, which, he says, are, "by some persons, erroneously deemed irregular;" and has included in it the words, blow, build, cast, cling, creep, freeze, draw, throw, and the like, to the number of sixty; so that he is really right in no more than one seventh part of his catalogue. And, what is more strange, for several of the irregularities which he censures, his own authority may be quoted from the early editions of this very book: as, "For you could have thrown about seeds."--Edition of 1818, p. 13. "For you could have throwed about seeds."--Edition of 1832, p. 13. "A tree is blown down."--Ed. of 1818, p. 27. "A tree is blowed down."--Ed. of 1832, p. 25. "It froze hard last night. Now, what was it that froze so hard?"--Ed. of 1818, p. 38. "It freezed hard last night. Now, what was it that freezed so hard?"--Ed. of 1832, p. 35. A whole page of such contradictions may be quoted from this one grammarian, showing that he did not know what form of the preterit he ought to prefer. From such an instructor, who can find out what is good English, and what is not? Respecting the inflections of the verb, this author says, "There are three persons; but, our verbs have no variation in their spelling, except for the third person singular."--Cobbett's E. Gram., ¶ 88. Again: "Observe, however, that, in our language, there is no very great use in this distinction of modes; because, for the most part, our little signs do the business, and they never vary in the letters of which they are composed."--Ib., ¶ 95. One would suppose, from these remarks, that Cobbett meant to dismiss the pronoun thou entirely from his conjugations. Not so
